


habits of my heart

by MiraclesInApril



Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Exes to Lovers, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-31
Updated: 2018-07-31
Packaged: 2019-06-19 17:16:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 17,229
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15514671
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MiraclesInApril/pseuds/MiraclesInApril
Summary: Heartbreak is your boyfriend leaving when you believe you are in a mutually loving and happy relationship. Three years later, Chanyeol thinks he has moved on. Only for Jongin to appear in his cafe one sudden day.





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> This fic started with a song and some vague flashes in my head of chankai comforting each other and being domestic boyfriends. After wrestling with it for ages, it's finally here~ The title comes from the song, Habits Of My Heart by Jaymes Young. My playlist for this story if you'd like to listen: [here](https://open.spotify.com/user/taemlovinkai/playlist/5A0Moe0j8FIyi8IodWVt3G?si=30X78bD4Qe6guPZTfNq8Yg)
> 
> All my love and thanks to Aimi who helped me figure out what the story needed and to Ha for being my cheerleader. ♡ 
> 
> Enjoy~

Happiness hangs on a hook. Dangles before him, daring him to take. He reaches, with hands that are versed in the outcome better than his foolish heart. Every single time, he reaches. And every single time Happiness is yanked away. Once again he chases the bait through tempestuous waters.

That is his life.  

Happiness stands now, across the street, through window panes, at the other end of a counter, in elvish ears and flashing teeth. One sample of a million facets of that smile. All of which feel like Happiness dangling all around him and finally standing still for him to embed into his skin.

He looks up. A surreal moment Happiness stares into his soul. Jongin blinks. Happiness stares through him.

Baekhyun’s voice filters through the static in his head. Broken ends of reassurances echo through his skull. Debris of memories float in the white noise. He focuses the remnants of his will to his feet. A locomotive for the cadaver it sustains.

He lets the sequences of greetings and all their possible outcomes play. The grim day turns sepia, like he stepped into a film frame with a distorted reel. Happiness gapes, gasp lost between dimensions. Happiness execrates, Happiness points him to the door. Happiness doesn’t look him in the eye, doesn’t share a single variant of its smile, not even the mime version, doesn’t utter a word.

Happiness slipping like grains through his fingers is bearable. Happiness turning to dust is not.

His head leads the locomotive. His feet obey. The centre of his being thumps.

 

Baekhyun receives him with a snicker and a shove down into his chair, clasping his shoulders.

At times Jongin anticipates an interrogation, like the first time Baekhyun brought him here. He remembered the veterinarian to be quick to laugh and sharp with his words. There wasn’t an occasion where he associated terror with him. That first day though, after years of attempting to entomb his past life and all its people, Jongin felt terror gurgle acrid in his stomach as Baekhyun dug it up, in dredges of memories, reasons, excuses.

Baekhyun only rolls his eyes at him now and waits for the explanation, despite always hearing the same one with altercations of the weather and what Jongin ate right before that made him feel queasy enough to not go through with it — or as Baekhyun likes to put it, what made him run away, _again._

  
  



	2. habits of my heart

Chanyeol shuffles hurriedly through the rain and dashes in through the back entrance. The few drops that fell on him have already soaked through his hoodie but he tries to shake them off all the same. The subdued sounds of the kitchen greet him, Kyungsoo, Jongdae and Junmyeon handling preparations methodically between them.  
  
“I’m back.” He snatches an apron from the hanger, tying it with expert ease as he makes his way to the double doors to the front.  
  
“Only took you forever!” Jongdae yells after him but he is already out of the room, the door banging shut.  
  
A vapid mid Thursday morning and the early rush has passed. Only a few tables are occupied, a drowsy young woman bent over her mug and a middle-aged man dazed before his laptop.

Chanyeol grimaces as he is met with Minseok’s haggard face as he turns from the order he just took.

“I’m sorry Min, go home.” he tells the tired barista.

“Don’t worry.” his friend smiles but his lips barely lift and Chanyeol’s guilt creeps higher. “It’s Toben.”

“I told him to leave.” Krystal shrugs as she works on her own order.

“Don’t come in tomorrow.” Chanyeol says softly, firmly.

“Latte. Triple.” Minseok shakes his head before disappearing to the back. Chanyeol makes a mental note to text him later, reiterate his instruction. He’s not sure why the new father is insistent on punishing himself.  

Chanyeol gets on the order, the hiss and drone of the coffee machine joining the patter outside. His mind wanders to Toben's crestfallen face as he'd walked out and the urge to drop everything and run back to the vet two streets away is severe.

"One take away triple latte." he puts on a smile as he places the paper cup before the customer.

"Thanks." the customer looks up from his phone then and Chanyeol's brain experiences split reality, one in which time has stopped and one in which everything is a racing blur. Emotion rises like bile up his throat.

"Jongin?" the man looks just as stricken as he feels.

Chanyeol can't hear the rain or Krystal working the machines behind him, only blood rushing.

"Uhm. Hi." Chanyeol catches the whisper. Or it's just that his entire being was trained to catch anything Jongin said. Whether he voiced them or not. Some habits are cast in stone it seems.

"Mocha." he blurts, his mouth defying him.

Chanyeol sees the exact moment Jongin understands what he means. "Yeah. I prefer lattes now."

Chanyeol nods. He's not sure what to say. What he can say.

"Thanks." he takes the drink in both hands and barely meets Chanyeol's eyes as he gives a smile that looks heavy. Chanyeol wants to call Jongin back as he turns away but the deja vu feels too much like being gutted. He says nothing as the next customer comes forward to the till.

“Chanyeol?” Krystal prompts as he stares after Jongin’s disappearing figure. “You know him?”

Chanyeol shakes his head, waving off her question and concern, and turns to the customer waiting to place their order.

The rest of the day is a haze that keeps getting smudged at the edges, emotions bludgeoning inside him like tornadoes meeting.

 

~~~

 

His home feels different that night.

The kitchen is vast between him and Ralphie. When he opens the cabinet he stares at the mug, sitting on the top shelf. He had never consciously thought about it even when he saw it, always going about his tasks on autopilot but tonight. The three chips in the rim face him, as well as the yellow bear smiling on the blue ceramic.

The living room is chilly. He has not turned on the heating before November in years. Three to be exact. Jongin was always cold and needed the heat even when he was snuggled up to Chanyeol.

It’s mid October but the chill emanates from his bones. Ralphie rests on his feet and he smiles down at the husky ruefully, remembering in a long time why he got the dog in the first place.

When he sits in bed, strumming his guitar, he doesn’t think of lyrics. Instead he remembers mornings where he played like this, sunlight filtering through his flimsy white curtains, Jongin snoring softly, snuggling Chanyeol's thigh. His eyes shoot open, in hopes of dispelling the image. Only for his gaze to meet the small holes pockmarking the opposite wall. Where he once had pictures of them from the polaroid he liked to carry pinned.

His note goes awry and Ralphie raises his head from where he’s curled at the foot of the bed. Chanyeol chuckles and apologizes.

He stopped seeing Jongin’s outline in the empty space next to him but tonight, Jongin is there. The light rise and fall of his chest. His mouth moving in drowsy mumbles. Murmuring for Chanyeol to be quiet, that he can tell him about this story in the morning.

When Ralphie crawls onto his legs, he’s reminded again why he adopted the huge furnace of a dog.

Chanyeol wakes in the middle of the night, first in a long time, scanning the space next to him, in sweat sheathed skin, calling out for someone whose presence has long grown cold.  

 

~~~

 

He did not expect Jongin to return but seeing him bent in the corner table, focus eludes Chanyeol as he watches him. With discretion, of course.

It's not his forte, though, as Krystal points out when traffic slows down enough for her to clear the counters of spills and stray powder and sugar. When noon hits and stream after stream of customers enter, he almost forgets the ghost sitting in the corner of his cafe. But then with a jolt, he sees Krystal taking Jongin's order again and it's once more a scythe to his insides.

It quiets down at mid afternoon. Pumpkin spice and coffee beans permeate the air. Chanyeol lives through a fogged conscious. When the stream picks up again at four, Jongin is still seated, legs curled beneath him with a pen in his grasp as he stares out of the window. He has been staring for the better part of thirty minutes, Chanyeol notes.

"Do you think he's cute?" Krystal sidles up to him with a nudge. Jongin lifts his head like he can sense the pair of eyes on him and Chanyeol turns to his prying friend.

"How many times do I have to tell you that I don't find every guy I see cute?"

"Yeah," Krystal nods, unfazed by Chanyeol's unamused gaze, "but you didn't just 'see' him. You're ogling him. In fact, look," she swipes up at the corner of his lips, "you're drooling."

Chanyeol scowls at her as she wipes her fingers on her apron repeatedly, genuinely disgusted as if she'd touched his spittle.

"I'm not ogling. Or drooling. He's just, he's been here a while." Chanyeol gives his back to his friend, knowing it won't stop her from analyzing him like the open book he has been to her.

"It's a cafe, Chanyeol. It's not anything peculiar."

"Okay, I don't know. He looks...sad. That's all."

“Hm. You’re right. Maybe he’s one of those brooding writer types.”

“Brooding writer types?” Chanyeol would chuckle at how close she is, if his stomach wasn’t roiling at the fact that he knows what Jongin does, _he knows Jongin._

“You know, the ones that are perpetually contemplative. He seems like the type.

“Maybe you should bring a complimentary dessert over to him.”

Chanyeol ignores her unsubtle undertones.

 

Krystal’s shift ends and she leaves. Chanyeol could leave too, if he wished. It’s not his day to close up — though there are not many days he does not choose to close up. He likes the short walk to his home in the dark. Besides, he had been planning on leaving early today, stopping by Baekhyun’s to check up on Toben.

He found excuse after excuse to stay at the counter when most days he would alternate between that and the kitchen or paperwork when necessary. His coworkers, friends, didn’t detect his unusual attachment to the front. Save for Kyungsoo.

“I thought it was Toben, at first.” Kyungsoo appears next to him, head titled in the direction Chanyeol has been dolefully transfixed by. “But then you would’ve been popping in and out every hour if that was the only thing.”

“Are you going to talk to him?” Kyungsoo takes the cup Chanyeol has been toweling for the past five minutes from him and sets it back on the shelf.

“Talk to who?” he reaches for another cup but Kyungsoo intercepts.

“Chanyeol.”

“Fine. No. Yes...no.”

“You should.”

“I should?” Chanyeol’s brows rise to his hairline.

It was Kyungsoo who had prohibited Jongin’s name from being spoken in their presence, three years ago.  It was Kyungsoo who had been so ready to go hunt Jongin down and drag him back by the hair. It was Kyungsoo — along with Krystal — who had encouraged all his half hearted flings and almost-nothings.

“For closure.” Kyungsoo shrugs. The way he fixates away from Chanyeol makes him want to ask questions but his friend quickly excuses himself before he can.

“I have to go. It’s almost closing time anyway. Speak to him. The least he owes you is an explanation. Who knows if he will disappear again or plans to stick around.” it is not that Kyungsoo is right that unsettles him. It’s just the sort of reasoning he’d expect from Baekhyun, or himself.  

He is not sure why Kyungsoo isn’t half way across the room throttling the life out of Jongin or even showing the barest hint of surprise at seeing him after all this time. Chanyeol shrugs it aside. His thoughts are clouded and all of the space is taken up by the man whose intent staring went from the window to the page of the journal split open on the table.

“See you tomorrow!” Jongdae and Junmyeon wave as they head out, umbrella already half open between them as the droning rain picks up again.

It’s only him and Jongin now, though the last customer should have left half an hour ago. Chanyeol didn’t have the heart, or valiance, to tell him to leave.

Chanyeol wonders if Jongin feels the silence devouring them. He certainly does. He aligns cups that are perfectly lined, rearranges the raw bean packets above the counter, checks that the till is off. Checks again.

 _What the hell,_  he decides.

He disappears into the kitchen, moving almost limply to give himself time, give Jongin time. To leave. So Chanyeol won’t have to do this after all.

But when he returns, Jongin is still by the same corner table, now scribbling into the book he had been gazing into like he were reading galactic secrets from. Chanyeol is tempted to detour and pretend he is heading for another table as he nears but Jongin glances up.

Chanyeol is transported to a time where Jongin looks up at him from his couch, hair rustled from having run his hands through it so many times out of frustration at the characters in his book. _Jonginnie, come eat dinner._  A warm candle-light like light flickering alive in Jongin’s eyes at the mention of food.

“Hi.” Jongin’s voice is faint from disuse, the journal before him is quickly shut and a protective hand lies on the cover.

“Writing?” Chanyeol smiles, setting the paper bag at the edge of the table.

“Journaling.” Jongin offers a smile back. It’s the image of melancholy.

Chanyeol feels the crawling up his throat again, like a million insects scrambling up from a festering internal wound and trying to escape through his mouth.

“Oh. You never did that before.” he doesn’t process the words as he says them but he regrets it as soon as they’re out. If only because Jongin’s breath hitches like he has taken a square hit to the stomach.

“No.”

“It’s on the house. I hope you still like Danish.” Chanyeol nods at the bag and cringes again at his choice of words.

“I do.” Jongin stares at the bag but doesn’t touch it. Chanyeol can almost feel Jongin leave but he is not certain that Jongin is just spacing out like he always used to or if he is seeing days of him seated on Chanyeol’s kitchen counter as Chanyeol tries to perfect the recipe so Jongin doesn’t have to spend money on buying it outside.

“You can come back tomorrow.” Chanyeol doesn’t disturb the ambience but he can see the lift of Jongin’s shoulders as he starts, the lost look in his eyes as he returns from the reverie his mind wandered to. “I’m closing up now. You can come back tomorrow, if you want.”

“Oh. Okay.” Jongin nods, looking around, out, like he was not aware it was well after dark, that they are the only ones left. He unfurls his legs, wavering a little as stands, shoves the journal and pen into a big pocket of his plaid jacket that hangs about his frame.

“Thanks.” he loops the ribbon handles of the bag on his wrist. This time the smile doesn’t seem so bogged and Chanyeol’s lips return the stretch easily, automatically.

 

~~~

 

Chanyeol doesn’t see Jongin the next day. He is glad. No one had questioned his absent mindedness yesterday besides Kyungsoo and Krystal but today his other friends ask if he’s feeling well.

Junmyeon assumes his off kilter behaviour stems from worry for Toben and suggests he quickly go check up on him.

Perhaps it might not make him feel better but the walk will help clear his head.

He finds himself scanning the heads ahead of him, across the street, as far as he can see. In hopes of catching a familiar shape, a silhouette burned behind his eyelids. His chest beats double time in fear he only understands now. What if Kyungsoo is right? What if that was the last of Jongin he will ever see?

Walking faster, he bends his head and counts the steps to Baekhyun’s.

 

~~~

 

“I’m offended that you keep running back here every hour. Benie’s in good care.” Baekhyun pouts at him from where he is kneeling before Toben’s open kennel. The dog perks up as soon as he senses him and a wide grin takes hold of Chanyeol until he sees the e-collar funneling from his neck.

“Sure.” he rolls his eyes and kneels next to his friend. “Hey, Benie. How’s my favourite boy?” Toben whines and paws at Chanyeol’s lap and Chanyeol’s smile feels slightly unsteady.

“He’s a strong boy. He’ll be fine.” Baekhyun pats Toben and Chanyeol suspects his bright grin isn’t just for the injured dog.

“He's going home today, right?”

“Yeah, all treated. It’s going to take a few days to heal so remember the pain meds. Xing will give you the details on your way out.”

“Kicking me out already, Baek?”

“Shut up and tell me why you really came.” he closes the kennel, minding Toben’s tail, and stands. “Oh please, I already told you I was going to take him to Viva.” Baekhyun states simply and the knowing glint makes Chanyeol sheepish. He holds Toben close as he rises and follows his best friend to his office.

Chanyeol’s lunch breaks are normally used for picking Toben up from a nearby care and stopping by Baekhyun when he doesn’t have a client. The poodle would race to the fruit chews strewn among the blankets. Today Toben favours Chanyeol’s feet over the basket in the corner of the room and Chanyeol’s frown deepens.

“I saw Jongin.” he says without preamble, picking up Toben. “I saw him, at Morpheus.”

“Oh?”

“It was...surprising.”

“No shit,” Baekhyun snorts and holds up pacifying hands when Chanyeol glares, “I mean it’s been three years and he’s basically been dead to you since Kyungsoo forbade his name.”

Chanyeol hums, though his heart protests at the ‘dead’ part because Jongin has been anything but to him.

“Do you want to see him again?”

Does he want to? Should he? The answer to both are more complex that he would like.

“You don’t think you should.”

“It doesn’t matter, Baek. He’s probably around here for a story. He’ll disappear soon enough.” Chanyeol plays with Toben’s ears.

“Hm.” Baekhyun reaches for the dog, “Let’s say he didn’t. Let’s say he stuck around. How would you feel about that?”

“I…” confliction spears disparate emotions through him, emotions that he thought he had permanently laid to rest, and for a stunned moment he grasps  for words. “I don’t know.” He says finally, returning Toben to his lap. He’s not sure whether yearning or anger or hurt has won out but it is all so very exhausting already.

“Don’t worry about it too much.” Baekhyun forces Toben into his lap, at the protest of both dog and owner. “I mean if you’re too disturbed by his presence, I could always test how carnivorous the animals we treat are.”

“Gross, Baek.” Chanyeol wrinkles his noise at the foul suggestion and covers Toben’s ears.

“Your choice.” Baekhyun shrugs and allows Chanyeol to wrestle Toben away as he stands.

“I need to get back but don’t worry about Ben. I’ll take him to Mom’s.”

“Don’t forget to stop by Xing. And my offer’s always on the table!” He yells as Chanyeol shuts the door, the latter’s eyes finding their way to heaven.

 

~~~

 

“My little boy is sad, I’m so sorry Benie.” Chanyeol mutters to the puppy in arms. “I promise that big bad boy won’t touch you ever again,” Toben whines sadly, a little drowsy on the painkiller Yixing had put him on before they left and Chanyeol thinks he might tear up, right here on the street.

He can’t shake off the guilt of the pup getting injured on his watch, injury afflicted by his own dog. The fact that Ralphie doesn’t get on with Toben isn’t a secret and yet he hadn’t watched closely enough the other day when he’d visited home.

“Hi.”

Chanyeol skids to a stop almost too late. Slightly disoriented, he realizes he is outside Morpheus and Jongin is there, smiling at him.

“Hi.” he returns, Toben feeling like a load in his arms as if some of his strength seeped out of him.

It seems he doesn’t have to wait long at all to find out how he would feel if he was to see Jongin again. The slight alleviation of the heaviness in his chest was not what he expected.

“Who’s this cute kid?” Jongin beams at the puppy in his arms, even if the collar preventing Toben from turning means he can’t see the smile.

“Toben.” Chanyeol’s smile grows, the memory of Jongin’s own ‘kids’, as he liked to call them, making its way into his mind.

“Can I pet him?” he steps closer, a hopeful glimmer in his eyes.

“Just, be careful. He took a bit of a bite.” Chanyeol grimaces and Jongin’s lips turn down in upset too.

“Oh poor boy.” Toben gives an inquisitive whine as he feels the foreign hand on him, trying to crane his neck. Chanyeol chuckles and turns him around to face Jongin.

“He’s such a pretty boy.” Jongin bends to be level with the puppy and strokes his head, looking enamored with him already and Chanyeol’s heart spikes, in pain and vestiges of adoration that have not died out.

“What are you doing here, Jongin?” Jongin stills, then straightens. For a second, the carefree friendliness falls from his face and Chanyeol sees emotions flicker too fast for him to read. The mask returns but the smile doesn’t seem disingenuous. Or perhaps he can longer read Jongin as accurately as he once could.

“I was going inside.” He points at the building next to them, a hunch in his shoulders Chanyeol never liked to see.

“Oh. Okay. Go ahead.” Chanyeol nods, his brain telling him to move but his feet staying planted, even as Toben whimpers steadily.

“You’re not coming?”

“Taking Toben to Mom’s.”

“Oh.” Jongin is quiet for a pensive moment. “Mom...Can I see—“ he trails off, the hunch in his shoulders deepening in diffidence, straying from Chanyeol’s eyes.

“Why?” the confusion is greater, confusion and frustration. He cannot decrypt what Jongin is playing at.

“I miss her.” he looks at Chanyeol and Chanyeol is not prepared for the candour, the unguarded gaze. He looks away, telling himself to not read too much into Jongin’s deeper shadows.

“Walk with me.” He feels twenty again, when Jongin smiles that smile of his, sending all of the zoo to Chanyeol’s stomach and blood rushing to his cheeks, always causing his chest to puff out when he, _he,_ can get Jongin to smile like that. Except now it twists and turns into something heavy, something murky that clogs his lungs.

Despite the turbulence inside him, the silence between them is airy. Chanyeol lucked out when he managed to get a place near his best friend’s vet _and_ his mother’s restaurant. Viva Polo is just as short a walk to Baekhyun's is, in the opposite direction.

He is uncertain if Jongin is recalling the same memories as him but images play through his mind, like they’d been tucked into crevices in his brain and were waiting for this emotional trigger to add to the turmoil. Memories of him and Jongin stopping by Viva Polo, taking some lunch with them to Baekhyun’s and playing with the animals. Evenings spent in the cafe that had been there before Morpheus, both of them bent over assignment and work but side by side, sharing a single cup.

“Is he yours?” Jongin winces, as if startled by his own voice breaking the silence.

“No, he’s mom’s,” Jongin nods, “how are your kids?”

“They’re good. They’re staying with noona.” Chanyeol doesn’t have to see Jongin’s smile.

“Oh?”

“Yeah. She works from home a lot now so she wanted their company.”

Chanyeol hums, lost for ways to fill the silence so he stops trying. “We’re here.” he announces, though Jongin’s no stranger to his mother’s restaurant.

He has a hand on the door when he feels Jongin’s fingers wrap around his wrist, gone as quick as the touch had come and Chanyeol thinks he can feel the fingerprints singed into his skin.

“Wait,” Jongin shoves his hands deep into the pockets of his jacket, the same one as yesterday. “Do you think...Is it okay…” his wide eyes beseech Chanyeol, trailing off because he knows Chanyeol understands what he’s asking.

“Jongin.” Chanyeol dares to reach out, a quick squeeze of the tense man’s shoulders, “Mom will be glad to see you.” _Mom still loves you,_ he wants to say. He wants to reach out and rub the creases out between Jongin’s brows until they’re replaced by crinkled eyes and upturned lips. He wants to tell him how Mom buys every single paper that has Jongin’s name to a story, how she gets Yoora to keep an eye on his blog and notify her when he updates. How she wishes him well and says she hopes his family check up on him. How she recalls sporadic details about his eating habits, how she still has pictures of him and Chanyeol up on the walls of Viva Polo, their messy signatures and silly messages there for all to read.

Why, Chanyeol is not clear on, but his mother is certainly clear on how she feels about Jongin.

“Don’t worry.” he hopes Jongin can read all that in his smile.

The restaurant is buzzing with life, voices and clatter, aromas and zipping attendants. Several regulars notice Chanyeol and Toben, and call out in greeting. Chanyeol meets them all with smiles and waves, as much as he can move his hand anyway with a puppy in his arms. Jongin is close behind him and Chanyeol could swear he’s less than a hair’s breadth away, bumping into him every few paces.

He spots his mother talking with a woman by the till as he is about to try the kitchen. She lights up when she sees him, beckoning him over.

“Chanyeol-ah! I wasn’t expecting you.” she tiptoes to kiss his cheeks and he leans down, returning one to her forehead.

“I went to see Baek and thought I might as well bring Benie over.”

“Oh how’s my baby? Here, let me have him.” his mother pouts at her puppy, gathering him from Chanyeol’s arms, petting him empathically.

“Hi Mrs. Walsh. How are you?” Chanyeol greets the lady as he recognizes her.

“I’m good my lad. How are you getting on?”

Chanyeol’s reply is cut short when he hears his mother make a choked sound.

“Mom?” his mother blinks rapidly, Toben slipping out of her hold. He rushes forward to catch the dog, concerned and bemused.

“Jongin?” she gasps and Chanyeol realizes Jongin had shuffled into sight from behind him.

“Mom.” Jongin smiles sheepishly.

Chanyeol doesn’t hear what his mother whispers before she pulls the tall man to her, arms wrapping around him like she wants to squeeze all her preserved affection into his bones. She is not alone in her sentiment.

He watches as his mother holds and rubs Jongin’s back, muttering into his chest, Jongin holding her just as tightly. His lungs clog again, mist in his vision.

“Jongin,” his mother finally pulls back and holds him at arm’s length, scanning him from head to toe. Her eyes are clouded but the joy shines through and Jongin is in a similar state.

Chanyeol hates what he’s feeling.

“Mom, you’re still so pretty.” Jongin laughs, a tear rolls down his cheek. The urge to reach out is intense but Chanyeol allows his mother to wipe it away and cup Jongin’s cheek.

“You’re still such a sweet talker.”

“It’s just the truth Mom.”

His mother shakes her head and pulls him for a hug again. Toben barks, as if feeling left out, and Chanyeol hugs the dog closer.

“Are you going to stay? Let me get you something to eat. Tell me how you’ve been.” his mother gestures to an empty table, an arm around Jongin and Jongin freezes up, glancing at Chanyeol.

“I—”

“We just came by to drop Benie. We’re heading back to Morpheus.”

“Oh. Well, you are coming back around aren’t you?” she glances between Chanyeol and Jongin, like it’s only occurring to her to wonder why Jongin is here, whether things are like they were before.

Chanyeol looks to Jongin, unable to answer this for him.

“Yes,” Jongin replies after a beat of conflicted silence, “I’ll be back.” he’s looking at Chanyeol too and the discord within him expands.

“Make sure it’s soon. Yoora is coming down this weekend too!” she pats Jongin’s cheek, “Oh! We’re going pumpkin picking this weekend. Chanyeol-ah, bring Jongin along too, hm?”

“Mom,” Chanyeol starts, lungs squeezing tighter, perhaps bringing Jongin here was a mistake, “I don’t think—”

“Great. I’ll see you this weekend.” Jongin cuts in.

 

~~~

 

The last rays of the sunset have died when they emerge out of Viva Polo and this time the silence is loaded. He eyes Jongin from time to time, observing how he doesn’t let them bump, doesn’t meet Chanyeol’s obvious stare.

“Jongin,” Chanyeol says as they near Morpheus. Jongin lets out a small sigh, knowing what’s coming and Chanyeol feels a spark of frustration. “Are you really going to be around?” he says instead.

“Would that...would you be against that?”

Chanyeol slows down, considering the question. It’s unfair, really. He is yet to sort his feelings. Jongin’s reappearance feels like standing at the bottom of a hill, a colossal canister filled with years worth emotion hurtling like a boulder towards him and hitting him right in the chest, leaving him stunned and reeling.

All of his emotions are unreliable. He should not be so glad to see someone he had handed his heart and had left him for him to find in shreds. He should not be so ready to embrace someone who had abandoned him in the dead of the night.

“I’m not sure, Jongin.” he says honestly, his exhaustion escaping.

“Are you angry to see me?” Jongin stops, prompting Chanyeol to do the same. They’re back where they started, outside Morpheus. He turns to Chanyeol and strides closer to him.

There’s a sliver of delicate to his openness, unshielded to Chanyeol’s response and ready to accept whatever it may be.

Chanyeol is taken aback by the bluntness.

Jongin had never asked any direct questions, not where feelings were concerned. Camouflaged enquiries, faint suggestions and soft hints, yes. But never outright.

Chanyeol lingers on the difference between the two Jongins, lingers on Jongin’s lips, lingers on the tingle in his fingertips urging him to touch Jongin, make sure he is real and right before him, see if his lips taste the same.

“No,” he sounds fainter than he likes, “I’m not angry to see you.”

Jongin nods, his shoulder drops. Chanyeol did not realize he was holding his breath.

“Can we work from there?”

“Okay.” a part of him, a minuscule part that holds on to nights startled awake in cold sweat and mornings spent in numb ache protests, reminds him, nudges the pain forward. But it is drowned by a greater ache, a reminiscent throb for times when Jongin tucked himself into Chanyeol’s arms, just like he’d tucked himself into Chanyeol’s heart, drowns it out, fills him with a spark more monumental that any other emotion.

Hope.

“Okay.” Jongin repeats back, smiling, nodding. Chanyeol is helpless to his own lips stretching to mirror.

 

 

~~~

 

In the next three days, Jongin sits in Morpheus, scribbling in his book and repeating orders. From a little after they open, to Chanyeol seeing him out at closing time, he is folded in the corner. His efforts of trying to forget Jongin’s presence don’t pay off, Krystal catching him in a daze over the man several times and asking him again and again whether he wants to ask him out.

It takes him back to the first time he asked Jongin on a date. It had been early morning, Jongin struggling to stay awake through breakfast in the campus canteen. They had spent the previous night together, studying for their respective classes next to each other.

They meant to watch a movie afterwards but neither of them had been able to keep their eyes open and Jongin hadn’t made it back to his dorm. It wasn’t long since they started spending so much time together, staying over late enough to be too tired to move, walking to and from lectures together, even if some of their halls were far apart, grabbing lunch together and trying to match up their schedules.

They had known each other two years prior but when they really started hanging out was when Chanyeol went over to Sehun’s dorm to pick him up for a party. Sehun was still getting ready and his roommate, Jongin, was grumbling over an assignment. Chanyeol only meant to comfort Jongin out of politeness but he happened to take the same course in his first year and knew how to assist Jongin.

He remembers how bashful Jongin had been, asking him later, when he dropped off a heavily drunk Sehun, if Chanyeol would tutor him. How could Chanyeol say no to this cute bespectacled boy who insisted on wearing onesies in May?

Chanyeol had said yes to tutoring him. Jongin had said yes to the date, said yes to Chanyeol’s wheedling into more socialisation despite his introvert—at times skittish—nature and he said yes to moving in together.

 

~~~

 

The weekend arrives, too soon and not soon enough.

Chanyeol is an early riser but seven a.m. is early on a weekend, even for him. He spends a short while fussing over the house he made impeccable the night before. He runs out of shelves to tidy and patches of carpet to hoover with the excuse that he spotted strands of Ralphie on them. The bathroom smells overwhelmingly of bleach and lime when he accepts there’s nothing manual to take his mind off his imminent guest.

 

Chanyeol sees him as he’s running back up the drive.

Jongin is sitting on his doorstep, fiddling with a small bag in his lap. The same one Chanyeol gave him pastry in. A bike rests on the wall, flower patterned helmet hanging by the handle. Jongin leaps up when he hears Chanyeol’s steps.

“Morning,” Chanyeol slows to a stop, breathing hard. One lap around the huge green bordering his house turned into two before he realized he would be late for receiving Jongin. He believed he had enough time to shower again before Jongin arrived but from the looks of it, Jongin has been waiting a while.

“Morning,” Jongin returns, amusement playing on his lips as he looks down at Chanyeol who is holding his knees.

“I thought I’d get here before you if I legged it.” Chanyeol wheezes.

“The effort shows.” Jongin smiles, eyeing the patches of sweat that soaked through Chanyeol’s running vest.

“Doesn’t it?” Chanyeol straightens and flexes his arm, grinning. Jongin rolls his eyes but Chanyeol doesn’t miss the colour in his cheeks.

“Come on in.” Chanyeol yields, despite enjoying Jongin’s invisible squirm.

A great bundle of white tackles Chanyeol as soon as he opens the door and it takes a moment for him to get his bearing. Sharp barks follow and Chanyeol cringes, feeling Jongin’s shock emanate.

“Hey, Ralphie, buddy calm down.” Chanyeol tries to appease the great white husky by patting him down but Ralphie is only eager to get past him. He steps aside, wondering why his dog is so excited when he normally shies from strangers.

“Wow.” the bag slips to the ground as Ralphie leaps to Jongin, reaching up to him with his paws like he’s asking for an embrace. Jongin crouches, indulging the dog. He meets Chanyeol’s eyes, his own wide.

“Wow, hi.” Jongin laughs as Ralphie licks his palm cupping his furry face.

“I think he likes you.” Chanyeol says quietly. Ralphie taking so quickly to Jongin makes something in his chest twinge.

“Yeah? I like him too.” he strokes Ralphie’s head and the husky leans into him with a sigh.

Ralphie sticks close to Jongin’s legs as they move deeper into the house, Chanyeol leading them to the kitchen. Jongin doesn’t comment on the forest green walls that had been white when he last stepped in this house, nor does he say anything about the pictures framed on them now of Chanyeol, Ralphie and his family only. He doesn’t react either to the empty spaces left where the others were removed from.

Instead he asks about Ralphie, cheerful and rapid fire questions about the labrador husky and petting him as they go.

 _Breathe, Jongin, breathe._ Chanyeol stops himself from reaching out, from caressing the small of Jongin’s back and whispering the calming mantra to him over and over until his nervous babble tapers off to calm.

In the kitchen Jongin seats himself at the small dining table, preoccupied with playing with the enthusiastic dog, awaiting Chanyeol’s reply.

“I got him two years ago.” Chanyeol supplies, opening the fridge. He closes the window letting in a draft, feeling the October chill as his body cools down from the exercise.

Jongin hums distractedly and Chanyeol thinks his attention is all for Ralphie when he turns to see him fixed on a point behind him. When he connects his gaze to the dracaena sitting at the edge of the sill, same spot as the past four years, Chanyeol quickly moves on to making the drinks.

Jongin had always grumbled about how large and unsightly it was in their kitchen but he was always the one to water it when Chanyeol was too occupied with work to remember its existence or replace it when it withered.

He doesn’t add that he got Ralphie as part of healing from Jongin. That no matter what, he couldn’t fall asleep at night and the rare times that he did, he’d be consumed in dreams of endless dark and piercing ice only to startle upright. That Jongin crawling onto Chanyeol in his slumber and half crushing him had become such an innate part of his sleep and once it was gone, it felt like sleeping naked in the arctic, and that the giant husky sitting on his feet was the closest compensation.

“You still have it.” it’s not the words that make Chanyeol stop in his tracks but the faint anguished tremble in Jongin’s voice.

“What?”

“My mug.”

Chanyeol nods, numb and frozen. He hadn’t even registered taking it out.

 _Why?_ He desperately wants to know. The single word pulses corporeal against his chest, trying to burst out.

For a second the euphoria of seeing Jongin again fades, the bubbly feelings and attempt at living in the second vanishes and Chanyeol feels laughter spume at his throat, hysterical and broken.

What is he doing? An early Saturday morning in his kitchen, making hot chocolate and talking about his dog to the man who walked out of his life three years ago like their relationship meant nothing. As if they are still together and everything is fine. What is he doing?

 _“You’re forgetting, Chanyeol. Time and distance is making you forget all the bad. That’s why you miss him so much. You’re just left with all the good in your head.”_ Baekhyun had told him, several months after the anger had long faded and all he was left with was dull yearning beneath his skin that never faded, yearning and yearning for just one last bit of their good, one last bit of Jongin.

Maybe Baekhyun was right. Maybe his rationale is fogged by how much he has missed Jongin, despite telling himself that he moved on. Maybe that’s why he doesn’t hate Jongin’s face yet, why he isn’t yelling at him to disappear from his life again, uncaring of his reason—if there is any—for leaving in the first place.

The moment ends and though he can’t manage a smile, he holds in the urge to ask what he desperately wants to know.

Jongin’s hands shake when he hands him the mug.

“Oh,” Chanyeol exclaims in realization, Jongin winces at the abrupt loudness, “I’m sorry. I forgot to make it latte.” old habits are near intrinsic, Chanyeol thinks with sadness.

“It’s fine. Chocolate’s...always nice.”

“We have to get going soon or Mom will start calling by the second.” the smile finds its way to him at the thought of Mom leaving successive excited voicemails, “I’m just gonna take a quick shower. I’ll be down in a sec. Ralphie’s good company.”

“Wait.” Jongin catches his wrist and lets go quickly but it’s Chanyeol that feels like he’s been burnt again. “This is for you.” he holds up the bag he brought with him, face blank but Chanyeol sees his tentative grip on the handles.

The smile that blossoms on his face is true once he peers into the bag.

“Thank you, Jongin.”

Jongin returns his smile, strands of hair falling into his eyes as he nods. The sip he takes of his drink is nonchalant but the pull of his lips doesn’t elude Chanyeol and the realization that Jongin doubted his knowledge of Chanyeol’s preferences brings less than joy.

It is more than alarming to find that nothing feels different besides the spasms of pain at the time they spent away from each other, memories of how things were and that Jongin left at all. Nothing of Chanyeol’s feelings has been erased.

That frightens Chanyeol most of all.

 

~~~

 

It’s windy at the pumpkin patch and people are scarce. His mother fusses over Jongin’s underdressed state and has been since she set eyes on him.

“Mom, he’s not going to catch hypothermia. He is wearing a sweater, just like me.” Yoora rations in exasperation by Chanyeol’s side.

The fields are tawny with Autumn, littered over with pumpkins of all sizes, some still ripening and some already festering. The tractor had transported them here thirty minutes ago and still they have not found any pumpkin that looks or feels right. Or more accurately; Chanyeol and Yoora are ready to make do with the next decent looking pumpkins they see while their mother is scrupulous and Jongin is obliging. The traitor.

“Mom, I’m not cold.” Jongin reassures brightly, linking arms.

His fingers furl and unfurl at the long sleeve of his pink knitted sweater. Trying not to let on his shivering. The liar.

“Okay, Mom can we actually start looking at pumpkins now?” Yoora steps ahead and links arms with Jongin’s free one.

Chanyeol trails behind, observing. The pulse is back in his chest, building. It’s hard. Grasping how it’s all so easy to fall back into old patterns, picking up their relationship like no time has passed, it’s hard.

This could be any October that he and Jongin were together. Any dull October day in a pumpkin patch that his mother frets over Jongin, that Yoora tries to save him from the excessiveness of it, that they laugh and grumble for Mom to hurry up.

His brain is split once again, in separate realities. One that demands answers and one that doesn’t want to go against the tide of his deep seated wishes.

“Let’s split up, this is taking too much time.” Yoora suggests, letting go of Jongin to rub up and down her arms, making a show of feeling the cold.

“I’ll go with Chanyeol.” Jongin gently detangles himself, more a statement than a request but Chanyeol nods to dispel the shadows of hesitance in the way he lingers next to Mom, like Chanyeol might decline.

“Make sure to get three healthy ones. The bigger the better!”  Mom tells them as they venture away.

 

Chanyeol says nothing, smiling occasionally as Jongin skips ahead and holds up miniature pumpkins, making commentaries on them. He tries to indulge the distorted reality, laugh and return Jongin’s silly comments as he would. But he can’t get past the undying echo ringing in his head, making it impossible to ignore his awareness of how natural it feels, to be around Jongin.

It’s how _simple_ it is that makes it jarring.

“Look, this would be perfect for the shower corner shelf.” the smallest pumpkin Chanyeol has seen yet sits in Jongin’s palm and the latter holds it up like an offering.

“Seriously?” Chanyeol raises a brow at the ridiculous suggestion.

“Why not?”

“Jongin. You’re suggesting I put a pumpkin in my shower.”

“You like getting in the season spirit.” the accompanying giggle sends a surge of helpless affection through Chanyeol and he almost gives in to the urge to pull Jongin into his arms.

“You know that’s not—” he’s cut off by a high pitched sound, realizing a moment later that it originated from Jongin. Before he can blink, the other man is catapulting himself into his arms, holding his torso tight.

Chanyeol can only stare down at the armful of human in his chest, speaking incomprehensibly into him.

Then he sees the source of Jongin’s terror; a cucumber beetle hovering over the fallen pumpkin.

“Jongin.” the laugh rumbles through him, turning into deeper guffaws as Jongin holds him tighter and hides in him.

_Of course._

Of course it wouldn’t be a complete pumpkin picking day without insects making Jongin run scared.

That makes Chanyeol’s laugh die in his throat, sobering him up abruptly.

“Jongin.” Chanyeol clears his throat, his sigh wistful. “It’s just a beetle.”

“Exactly!” Jongin looks up, distraught. Chanyeol wants to return his embrace, stroke the hair back from his face.

“It’s no harm to you.” but Jongin doesn’t look any more assured by that. “It’s gone now.”

He waits for Jongin to let go.

The pulse returns, overwhelming, when Jongin wraps his arms around him tighter and turns his head, ear pressed to his chest like he’s listening for Chanyeol’s heartbeat.

Chanyeol’s fists clench hard by his sides. The urge to hold Jongin is overwhelming too. So many times he wished for this exact moment. Now it’s here and all he sees are days bygone where the only thing he felt was love and warmth, where his vision had blurred as he grinned, not blurred with stinging tears and a deadly constriction in his chest.

“Jongin,” he hates that it comes out choked, “please let go.”

Jongin’s arms come free like dead weight. Chanyeol’s heart constricts harder when Jongin glances up at him. Despite his own pain, he wishes he could rid Jongin of the torment in his eyes.

“I’m sorry.”

He is apologizing for so much more but Chanyeol doesn’t know what to do with _I’m sorry._ _I’m sorry_ tells him nothing but he knows that Jongin knows the inadequacy of it, looking twice as troubled.

“What do you want Jongin? I— I don’t understand. What do you want?” all their feelings, his and Jongin’s, suffocate him. The things he wants, what he senses Jongin wants, what they are both leaving unsaid. It takes the air from him and leaves white hot burning, until there is only frustration and hurt whittled to anger. “What are you doing?”

“I—”

“You two seriously haven’t picked anything? Not even one?” Yoora’s approaching voice yells at them and the raging storm cloud above them dissipates.

“Noona, we’re trying to find perfect ones!” Jongin defends, marching to meet her, brushing briefly over Chanyeol’s waist, _I’m sorry._

Chanyeol is grateful for the borrowed seconds as he breathes deeply and wills away the density in his eyes.

 

~~~

 

_There were no bad parts._

The sudden rain clouds blotting out the sun cast gloomy dimness into the room. The silence drums like the rain starting to beat against the window. Baekhyun’s words play over in his head but no, something had always rung untrue about them. It just never hit like it does now.

There were no bad parts, not with Jongin.

There were disagreements and a little distance when their workload overflowed but they always took a moment to step away and fall back together. Their arguments had never been seriously heated, Chanyeol always made a point of talking out their problems instead of yelling and at most, Jongin would withdraw into himself for a day or two before opening up.

Their relationship was the furthest from rocky or toxic and this is what perplexes Chanyeol the most.

He finds his mind wandering as he watches Jongin draw on the pumpkin. He was always the better drawer and so the task of outlining the pumpkins had been his.

“Shit,” Jongin whispers as his hand jerks and the pen slips out of his neat shape. It’s the second time and Jongin’s mouth is set tight in frustration.

Chanyeol doesn’t stop himself from reaching out, anticipating the jump that turns into melding against his palm.

“Are you going for a Jaws look, Jongin?”

“Wouldn’t a pumpkin Bruce be cool?” his hand steadies, mirth where nerves had been.

“Just don’t make it too scary for yourself.”

“Hey…” Jongin stops to pout at him. Chanyeol just nudges him to continue, grin restrained.

“Are you going to take them out in the rain?”

“When it stops. They should be fine either way. Halloween is only a week away.”

“Hm. Let me guess, you’re going to go all out. Trick-or-treating and everything.” Jongin cuts into the outline, looks up for split second that shows Chanyeol the shadow of a sardonic smile, before resuming his careful carving.

Chanyeol doesn’t hide his grin as past Halloweens come back to him, where he forced Jongin to dress up and go door to door with him. In which they promptly got egged by kids for stealing the sweets they perceived as theirs, both of them groaning as shells cracked open on their unsuspecting bodies, trudging their stinking egg soaked selves all the way back to campus where Chanyeol somehow managed to coax Jongin into a party, despite their state.

“Actually no. I’m going to stay in.” Chanyeol touches Jongin's wrist, “Watch some movies and wait for the kids.” he takes the knife, ignoring the absence that comes with no longer being in contact with Jongin.

“Oh.”

“You could come.” the words hurl out of his mouth and bounce on the echoes of the lingering heaviness.

“What?”

“Halloween night. Come over.” he doesn’t look away from the pumpkin. Jongin’s grasp for words is audible.

“Yeah. Okay. I’d like that.” he breathes out eventually, sounds akin to relieved.

Chanyeol finishes carving out the face. He hands Jongin the marker to start outlining the next pumpkin as he unstuffs the carved one. They work in easy tandem, carving, drawing, unstuffing. Chanyeol shakes his head in amusement at Jongin’s somewhat indistinguishable faces but he doesn’t comment because Jongin does ten times a better job than he could.

With the ice fort between them thawing, they work faster. The coat of nostalgia hovering in the evening feels as tactile as the knife in his hand. Cuts as sharp, every moment he finds himself pausing to look at Jongin. Taken aback by _Jongin_ in his kitchen, standing side by side, carving pumpkins with him. Nicks his heart every time Jongin begins to morph into a spectre. A barefoot version of him that wears stolen t-shirts that hang by his thighs, a guitar pick necklace around his throat.

The memories pour in like riptide. Chanyeol shrugs them off, breaking the surface.

“Tell me about your kids. And the family. And work.”

He needs to hear Jongin speak. _This_ Jongin. So the spectre in his head can be silenced.

It is. As Jongin updates him on the weight gain of his dogs, the lost toy incident with Jjangah and how they’ve all grown more insolent than ever. Chanyeol looks up from his carving every so often, Jongin’s radiance captivating as he speaks of his loved ones.

“Work. I don’t know. I don’t where that’s going.” Jongin says, taking all the waste to the compost. His easy manner falters and Chanyeol pauses.

“But you’re doing great.” a second too late he notices his blunder. He hopes Jongin doesn’t notice it. It’s not like he actively kept up with Jongin. Not when Jongin evidently wanted him to forget about him. But he can’t help the updates Mom drops on him from time to time.

“Yeah. I don’t know. It just, it feels suffocating lately.”

“You quit?”

“On leave.”

“Maybe you need a holiday.”

“I...I’m not looking for new experiences. I—” he shakes his head, brows drawn together.

“You what?”

“I need the old. I miss that.” The silence is quiet for a moment before it turns staccato. “I miss you.” he says, a gentle bolt of tenderness.

Iron hands compress Chanyeol’s chest. The silence expands. Jongin looks how Chanyeol feels.

“I’m sorry.” he sounds small in the growing vacuum. The silence grows spikes.

“Jongin...I can’t…”

“I’ll leave.” he pushes away from the counter, the sound rushing back into the room. Chanyeol doesn’t have time to process his sudden departure, staring after Jongin’s back as he makes his way out of the house.

By the time Chanyeol’s body kickstarts into action, the front door has slammed shut. He follows after, determined not to let Jongin slip through his fingers again. Running away, running again.

He catches a glimpse of Jongin’s bike disappearing around the bend leading out of his driveway and breaks into a sprint.

The rain is still coming down hard, pounding on the asphalt like Chanyeol’s feet. While Jongin is pedaling fast, Chanyeol has been running for years and catches up fast.

“Wait!” he yells, running parallel. Jongin’s bike skids to a stop, a yelp cutting through the rain. He stares at Chanyeol like he’s doubting his sanity.  

“Jongin,” Chanyeol pants, “stop. Stop running away.” Jongin is poised like a loose canon, prepared to spear away at the shortest notice. Chanyeol moves closer to him, inching slowly. He is not letting Jongin get away. They can’t live in a loop.

“I’m not sure why you came back. I’m not sure why you left.” Jongin flinches and short lived anger flares through Chanyeol. “Jongin, you can’t...you can’t act like I’m the one who’s tearing you apart here. _You_ left, Jongin. Everything was fine and then one day, you were just _gone._  I want to know why. What was so bad that you couldn’t tell me? What hurt you so much that you didn’t want to talk to me ever again? But — I’m assuming you’ll tell me. You need time, don’t you? I’ll wait. I’ve waited three years. Just — just stop. Stop running. That hurts me most.” perhaps it is rain or tears streaking down Jongin’s face, Chanyeol is not sure of that either. His own vision is suspiciously blurry. He sees Jongin’s nod, though.

“Come on. Let’s get dry.” Jongin doesn’t resist when Chanyeol turns his bike around and starts up the way back home.

 

The sweater is ridiculously large on Jongin. Jongin favours paws for sleeves but this is double what he normally prefers and Chanyeol rolls it up to a reasonable size. The sweatpants are as well too large, the cuffs pooling on the tiles but then again it had always been his tops Jongin had thieved, not his bottoms.

Jongin sits on the lowered lid, staring at his feet in subdued silence. Chanyeol towels his hair, his own wet head wrapped up. Ralphie sits at door of the bathroom, a spectator between the sombre two.

“You resemble Monggu even more right now.”

Jongin’s smile is a relief to them both. The denseness between them was beginning to make Chanyeol feel like he had anchors for lungs.

“Like owner like dog. Except you and Ralphie. Ralphie is way better looking.” Jongin looks up cheekily and Chanyeol pretends to rub his hair aggressively.

“Don’t let him hear that. He already thinks the world of himself.” Chanyeol snorts at the husky perking up at the mention of his name. “Besides,” Chanyeol resumes his gentler pace, “I can lie to you both that you’re handsome if your esteem needs it. Mine certainly doesn’t.” Chanyeol continues on indignantly, ignoring Jongin’s betrayed gasp.

“Hey!” his arms come around Chanyeol’s thighs, “Take that back. Take that back. Take that back!”

Chanyeol ignores him, humming as he goes on drying Jongin’s hair but it’s difficult to ignore his clingy whines.  

“Fine. Fine!” the towel drops as Chanyeol pries Jongin’s arms from his legs, “What do you want me to take back?” his wet locks frame his face and Chanyeol chuckles again at the resemblance between the human before him and his pet poodle.

“I’m truly handsome and you believe it. Say it.”

Chanyeol sighs, pretending to ponder it. More than anything he just wants to lean down and kiss the fullness of Jongin’s protruding lips. He is not any more immune to his pout as he was before it seems.

He lets out a long suffering sigh before meeting Jongin’s eyes. “You are handsome and I believe it.” Jongin’s eyes crinkle in triumph and Chanyeol’s got jelly for a stomach. “Because my ego doesn’t suffer if I admit it.” he adds, a laugh falling from his lips at Jongin’s expression swiftly souring.

“You’re the worst.” Jongin pulls away, arms crossed over, every inch petulant.

“Not even close.” Chanyeol says, smug, picking up the towel.

“You’re right.” not only is the sentence unnatural but the playfulness has leached out of Jongin, “ _I_ am.”

“What?”

“I am. The worst. I keep hurting you. Maybe...maybe I shouldn’t have come back. I should — go away. Forever.”

“Jongin. Didn’t we just agree no more running away?” he can’t help throwing his hands up in exasperation. What can he do for Jongin to understand? Whatever he thinks is hurting Chanyeol, it’s not worse than abandoning him.

“I keep hurting you though.”

“It will hurt more if you leave again. Just. I’m not sure if we can go back to how we were. But all I know is that I don’t want you to go away.”

“You should be angry. You shouldn’t want to see me.” he says matter of factly.

“I had a lot of time to be angry. This time let’s try talking.”

 

~~~

 

Halloween's eve there's a bustle at Morpheus. Business is open but only half of the cafe is functional. The other side is set up for the party later that evening.

Krystal rushes by Chanyeol with a heavy bowl of drink and he reaches out to steady her as she almost stumbles.

"Careful."

It is the second year the party is being hosted at Morpheus, a get together for Mama Park and her group of friends (and their friends). Chanyeol's love for Halloween stems solely from his mother, the Autumn holiday more sacred than Christmas in their household. Her enthusiasm for it has not diminished in the least and it fuels Chanyeol's own gusto for the occasion.

“Can I have one?” he almost ignores it, thinking it’s directed at someone else when Jongin plucks one out of the basket anyway.

“What was the point in asking?” Chanyeol raises a brow but Jongin’s busy with the task of biting into the candy apple he stole. He follows him to the table where Chanyeol sets it, looking starry eyed at the food and treats lining every inch of the surface.

“How can I help?”

“There’s nothing—”

“He can help me move the extra tables to the back.” Kyungsoo grabs Jongin’s wrist, a frighteningly saccharine smile on his face. They are gone before Chanyeol can intervene.

He eyes their disappearing backs, wondering if he should be scared for Jongin. Then he sees Kyungsoo’s smile still in place, Jongin’s high, delighted laugh carrying back to him and he relaxes.

Jongin will be fine he concludes.

 

It’s seven p.m. when Morpheus closes to the public and invitees flow in. His mother stands at the door, greeting everyone who enters. Chanyeol has five minutes to disappear before his mother turns her attention on him and demands he play something for them. Which will trap him at Morpheus for the rest of the evening.

The prospect is horrifying. He certainly does not want a repeat of last year.

“Chanyeol what—” Jongin starts. Chanyeol doesn’t let him finish, clasping their hands and leading him to the back.

“He lives!” Jongdae exclaims, shrugging on his coat, the others ready to leave.

“Yeah, we’re not doing last year again.”

“Exactly how many Johnny Cash songs were you subjected to?” Minseok asks, his smile too pouty to be sincerely sympathetic.

“Too many for healthy consumption.” Chanyeol shudders, the memory raising goosebumps on his arms.

“Love, is a burning thing,” Baekhyun appears at the backdoor, a devious grin on his face as he belts, “And it makes a fiery ring!” he dances his way to Chanyeol, waving his hands about the air like an orchestra conductor. “I fell into a burning ring of fire!”

Chanyeol tries to push him away as he collapses into his arms. “Are you already drunk?”

“No, it burns burns burns, the ring of fire!” Baekhyun says, swinging his arm around Jongin who happens to be close.

“Shut up before my mom hears, will you?” Chanyeol tries to shrug him off but Baekhyun is deceptively strong, clinging onto them both like they’re responsible for keeping him upright.

“Let’s go get drunk! Drunk! Drunk!”

Chanyeol sighs, letting up his resistance. There is no detaching Baekhyun unless he decides so.

“I— where are you going?” Jongin asks over Baekhyun’s head.

“The bar. There’s a party there too. But no Johnny Cash.”

“Oh. I like Johnny Cash.” Jongin pouts and if there weren’t a body between them, Chanyeol isn’t sure he could stop himself from kissing him.

“I know, that’s why Mom adores you.”

The shy curve of Jongin’s lips only strengthens Chanyeol’s urge, wanting to reach out and trace it if he can do nothing more.

“I am right here. Your flirting is gross.” Baekhyun wrinkles his nose up at Chanyeol, looking between him and a shier Jongin. “I’m leaving you for more civil people.” he pulls away from them and stumbles towards Minseok and Jongdae, hooking his arm around them despite their protests. Chanyeol smiles, amused to see Baekhyun’s antics exercised on anyone other than himself.

“You’re coming right? Just a few drinks.” He adds when Jongin’s expression flickers uncertain.

 

The walk to the pub consists of Baekhyun crucifying more Cash songs, Jongdae yelling over him to quiet him, Minseok’s sighs reaching Chanyeol and Jongin at the back, and Kyungsoo speed walking ahead like he doesn’t know any of them.

“Missed this too.” Jongin murmurs at the ground.

_You left us, Jongin, we didn’t leave you._

“You won’t be saying that soon.” he says instead, nudging him. Unprepared, Jongin stumbles to the road and Chanyeol is reaching out and securing him to his side before he knows it.

“Don’t die before we get to the worst part of the night!” Chanyeol chides. Jongin’s laugh makes it easy to ignore the ever creeping memories that make him want to demand answers.

 

Three hours later Chanyeol is walking down the same path, laugh bubbling from his lips. He supports a staggering Jongin who won’t be quiet, intent on waking the whole neighbourhood.

“Chanyeol, what’s the difference between me and you?” Jongin slurs up at him, bright and gleeful. “No, I promise it’s good!” he insists when Chanyeol sighs in dismay. He has heard this one from Jongin in every variation possible over the years they’d been together but Jongin either never tires of or recalls telling it.

“You _Park_ Chanyeol and I’d like to _ride_ him.” he bursts out giggling and the sound pumps Chanyeol’s heart.

“Be quiet Jongin, you’re going to be so embarrassed in the morning.”

He won’t though, not really. Recollection of their drunken escapades is hazy for Jongin and he never remembers solid details after the inebriation takes hold.

“Okay, last one please! I’ve been wondering if you’re an architect because my guts—” he never gets to finish as he promptly bows and throws up at their feet.

Chanyeol groans. He thought this part of the night was further away but he miscalculated; Jongin is drunker than he thought.

“Oh no.” he manoeuvers Jongin to a wall, cringing at the mess on the tip of their shoes. Jongin retches a few times, Chanyeol keeping an arm around his middle for fear of him collapsing to the cement.

“Don’t feel good.” Jongin moans with closed eyes once he straightens, leaning back on the brick.

“I can see. You’ll feel better when we get home.” he dabs a tissue around Jongin’s mouth and squeezes his shoulders.

“Home?” he sounds distant, the dulcet murmur of his sleep talk, “Home.” he nods and smiles at Chanyeol, lucid for an instance.

“Come on.” Chanyeol swallows the lump, putting his arm around him.

“I want you to— to kiss me.”

“Kiss you?” Chanyeol chuckles, even as his heart thunders. “You just threw up.” he reminds but cups Jongin’s face anyway. He feels the hitch in Jongin’s breath as leans in, sharp tenderness that digs into his ribcage, presses his lips to Jongin’s cheek.

Jongin’s eyes are closed when Chanyeol pulls away, bliss faint and perceptible on his face. Despite his drunken state, he looks dreamlike and wondrous and Chanyeol longs for this to have been a sober moment.

“Hug.” Jongin doesn’t open his eyes.

Liquor had always emboldened Jongin but that was then, when they could demand from and give freely to each other. Chanyeol wonders if Jongin’s subconscious thinks they are still in that place. Or wishes for them to be, like he does too.

Ideally, there would be no liquid confidence in their veins for their first hug in years but he wraps his arms around Jongin, regardless. Jongin instantly returns it, like their natural form is as one, like he breathes better with Chanyeol pressed to him. All the world could be in mayhem or it could be enshrouded in ghoulish silence but for several heartbeats, they are in a world where the only thing all Chanyeol's senses perceive is Jongin, rushing outwards like a heartbeat.

“Tell me you missed me.” his whisper is hoarse and Chanyeol feels the hiccups of his chest then.

“I missed you. I miss you.” he holds Jongin tighter, compressing his years of aching into a single moment and willing it into every pore of Jongin’s, down, down into his bloodstream, his marrow. _I missed you, why did you leave, I’m glad you’re here._

Something in Jongin sinks— and then lifts, like a buoy overcome by a riptide then finding the surface as it passes. His arms tighten around Chanyeol’s neck, a sigh escaping from the depth of his chest and Chanyeol understands, feels it too as it deflates in him then blooms. Relief. Fulfillment. And a new, vulnerable ache.

“I missed you every day, Yeol.”

 

They make it back to Chanyeol’s house, the drunken flirt drained out of Jongin, replaced by a subdued and terribly sleepy Jongin that is as light as a fridge in Chanyeol’s hold. Ralphie helps nudge Jongin up the stairs, barking in concern until Chanyeol hushes him. He manages to get his cardigan and jeans off before Jongin lets out a loud snore that startles him awake.

“Chanyeol?”

“Go to sleep.” he peels back the covers and guides him to lie down.

Jongin’s breathing is steady again before he even has the covers up to his chest and Chanyeol smiles at his peaceful face. Picking up the discarded clothes at the edge of the bed, he almost yells in fright when timid fingers catch his wrist.

“Chanyeol,” Jongin is surprisingly articulate. “It wasn’t anything you did,”

“Tell me when you’re sober, Jongin.” he loosens Jongin’s fingers and pulls the covers up again. He’s glad Jongin can’t see the emotion anchored to his lips. “Tell me in the morning.” he smiles to the dark, a dent outlining the spectre he’d longed for. A light sigh replies.

 

~~~

 

A wet muzzle, a sore back and winter’s tentative kiss greet him. He lies in disorientation, letting the morning soak in, the patter outside, the cold, the wafting of crisp coffee beans and distinctly indistinct sounds.

Bragging rights of holding liquor are certainly his but he can’t say he is immune to its rancorous hangover. Ralphie’s weight is more inconvenient than not this morning and Chanyeol groans weakly at the dog.

“Morning.”

Chanyeol jumps upright, Ralphie tumbling off him, fists raised though his vision has not adjusted.

“I only stole a hot chocolate. Please don’t hurt me Mr. Terrible Bedhead.”

Nonplussed, Chanyeol stares until the blur before him redefines itself into his living room and a quietly amused Jongin. Another groan, he sags back into the sofa.

Despite Jongin being a lightweight, he is dispensed from any of its morning after consequences.

“Here.” he is pushed upright again, his body disapproving of every second. Warmth is pushed into his hands and he automatically cups it. Life is worth trying to live now, he decides, blinking his eyes open.

Sighing wistfully, he stares at the apparition of his heart, dressed in his shirt that is way large on him, hanging by his bare, supple thighs as always, hair mussed from sleep and eyes fond and wanting.

“I wish you were real.” the piping coffee doesn’t even sting.

“Chanyeol.” maybe he needs more sleep, hallucinations aren’t supposed to sound so real.

“Chanyeol.”

“Chanyeol.”

It comes back to him like a slap.

“Oh.”

“It’s okay.” Jongin pries the cup from him. Then he’s pulling Chanyeol to him, wrapping him in himself. “You’re okay.”

Jongin murmurs small reassurances to him, nuzzling his neck. After a while, Chanyeol has the heart to hug him back. He lets them fall back on the arm of the sofa, half of his body cushioned under Jongin. The latter hooks his legs around Chanyeol’s calf and hitches the other over Chanyeol’s waist, head buried in Chanyeol’s neck.

With Jongin sprawled over him, thermal like second skin, he finds it easier to comprehend, grasp Jongin’s corporeality.

“It doesn’t happen often.” he says quietly, hand on Jongin’s bare back, counting the rungs of his spine.

“I’m sorry it happens.”

Chanyeol pauses on his hip, squeezing.

“And I—I’m sorry about your shirt. I was cold.” Jongin says against his skin and Chanyeol narrowly veils a shudder.

“Should’ve turned on the heating.”

“I missed how you smell.”

“Creepy.” Chanyeol tugs softly at Jongin’s hair, getting him to look up.

“Don’t be mean.” Jongin frowns with downcast eyes and heavy lips and Chanyeol immediately regrets facing him, tugging him back down. Instead of returning to their former position, Jongin ends up hovering centimetres from Chanyeol and the air is frozen around them, ice inside every molecule of his lungs.

Jongin’s gaze darts between Chanyeol’s eyes and his lips, a question in the way he frames Chanyeol’s face. A slight tilt to his head or a lift or a shift. The longing drills a hole through his chest, a fray of blood. Jongin seems closer by each ticking second and _god,_ how Chanyeol wants to.

“Did you brush your teeth? You know, you threw up on me last night.” Chanyeol breaks the hypnosis and life resumes in a whoosh of stifled intentions.

“I’m sorry.” Jongin winces. He returns to Chanyeol’s neck, the news unbearable.

“S’okay. Isn’t what you’ve never done.” Chanyeol tangles his fingers in Jongin’s hair, caressing his scalp and Jongin becomes pliant against him. “We need to talk, Jongin.”

Chanyeol feels him still at that.

“But let’s have breakfast first.”

 

Breakfast, which turns out to be brunch, sees Jongin nursing his mug at the kitchen table, knees nestled to himself. Chanyeol lets the silence brew, reluctant to broach it. Jongin has become reticent again, the tentative shadow of absence surrounding him, an alienating force field.

“You sang all the way home too, you know.” Chanyeol caves first when it becomes apparent Jongin is content to let the silence take up the room. “A few angry residents came out to yell at you.”

“What?” Jongin looks up, mortification livid.

“Kidding.” He grins, “But how is that worse than you getting your guts on me?” he muses, sitting opposite Jongin, “You know what, don’t answer that. You wanted me in your guts but instead you brought your guts to me. I can respect that.” his nonchalance is stark to Jongin’s ballooning embarrassament and it makes him laugh.

“What do you mean?”

“Don’t worry about it.” Chanyeol says when he can speak, brushing a comforting foot against Jongin’s leg.

“No, tell me what I did. All of it.” Jongin groans, setting his mug down to facepalm the table.

“You proposed to me.”

“I _what?”_

Chanyeol puts his own mug down then, holding the table as he guffaws. Jongin’s face is priceless.

“You are not funny, Park Chanyeol.” Jongin’s pout is audible but the mention of his surname only makes Chanyeol’s shoulder shake harder, his tummy beginning to ache. “Stop laughing at me.” Jongin kicks him but Chanyeol can’t stop and eventually Jongin is chuckling at his own expense.

 

“Just say you want me to die for laughing at you.” Chanyeol shakes his head, reaching over Jongin’s shoulder at the sink to push the window open. “I can barely stand.”

“It’s a lovely day out, Chanyeol.” Jongin reasons, rinsing the cutlery. Chanyeol doesn’t move away, falling into old habits for a second and resting his head on Jongin’s shoulder, palms splayed on Jongin’s hips.

“Lovely...day?” Chanyeol glances out, squinting at the dreariness spread before him.

“For cycling. Come on. You need the air.”

 

Chanyeol groans internally as the world tilts. He eyes the man before him, wondering how Jongin has managed to get him around his finger again this fast.

If he is honest with himself, he had never unravelled.

Autumn colours the world in a dying flare of burgundy and cantaloupe, slicked by rain. Their wheels paste the leaves to the ground in faint crunches. Clouds hang thick in steel vow of more downpour and the trees rising on each side lean in together like they are sharing secrets on the wind.

Chanyeol cycles faster, disgruntled by the freshness he feels being outside, Jongin being right.

It takes him back to a time when they both cycled down this route every morning. After Chanyeol had moved into this home, inherited from Nan, Jongin practically moved in too. They refurbished the house together, Jongin picking out the dishes. Their favourite mugs. Seeing Jongin standing in his living room, flicking through a colour scheme catalogue for curtains was an encompassing moment of ephemeral fondness, an immortal photograph deep in the pocket of his safest memories.

Every morning they cycled out together, Jongin to their university that Chanyeol was now a graduate of and Chanyeol to the office where he found work with a local paper. Admittedly, it was far out for Jongin but _waking up next to you is worth it Chanyeol_ , he had stated matter of factly, effectively shutting down Chanyeol’s protests.

“Are you hungover enough to lose?” Jongin taunts over his shoulder. Chanyeol takes in the lazy arch of his brow, the cocky way he only has one hand on the handles. Chanyeol sighs and shrugs, an image of premature defeat. When Jongin turns away, smiling haughtily, he allows his own grin and accelerates pedalling.

 

“Get back on.” Jongin says sourly, pushing Chanyeol towards his bike. Chanyeol stands stoic, entertained by Jongin’s irritation and inability to stomach a loss.

“Best out of three, Jongin. Just accept it.” he hangs his helmet on his handle, bike resting against the house front. Jongin’s bike is stationed behind it but its owner refuses to abandon his helmet, trying to persuade Chanyeol to one more round.

“If you are so confident, why won’t you race me one last time?”

“I am thinking of your poor ego. Don’t want to stamp on it any further.” Chanyeol says sympathetically, cupping Jongin’s cheek until he is shoved away. “Tell you what,” he pulls Jongin back to him, unclipping the buckle of his helmet. “If you accept it and come in, I’ll make you some toffee apples.”

“It’s Halloween. You were going to make some anyway.” Jongin doesn’t fall for his false compromise.

“Hm fine. I’ll build us a pillow fort. And—” before Jongin can decline, “you can pick the movie.”

There is barely a moment of consideration before Jongin shuffles inside begrudgingly with a sigh.

 

Munching on a particularly large toffee apple, Jongin watches him, smug, from the couch while he goes back and forth with for the materials he needs to build a fort.

Chanyeol says nothing as it proves too boring for Jongin to idle, getting up with a suffering sigh and trudging up the stairs to bring down the remaining pile of blankets.

Chanyeol sets up chairs on either sides of the duvet he spread on the floor and Jongin is ready with the bed sheet. They work in steady synchronization, clipping on pegs to shape the fort, standing brooms at the corners and fetching a stick out of the attic when they fall one corner short, gathering all the cushions they can find in the house. Ralphie helpfully plops down on the fence of cushions and Jongin kneels next to him to cajole him off it.

Chanyeol returns to the both of them lying on their backs, paws facing up, trying to reach the white bedsheet ceiling. Holding back a groan, Chanyeol drags them out of the fort by their collars to finish setting up.

 _There’s no magic without the lights,_ he remembers Jongin say as he strings the fairy lights around their temporary squishy abode. Nan’s old chunky TV that Yoora convinced him to keep sits at the entrance and there’s nothing left but to close the curtains and pick a movie. Jongin and Ralphie now sit side by side in excitable expectation, grinning eerily similar at each other.

“Chanyeol, these all suck.” Jongin stares aghast at the cases spread out before them. _I can’t watch them._

“Pick.” it’s Chanyeol’s turn to sit back in satisfaction.

“You cheated.” Jongin surveys his options again, horror film after horror film next to horror film.

“Did not. I just didn’t specify and you didn’t ask.” Chanyeol shrugs, completely unsympathetic.

“Okay. Ralphie and I are going. You can stay here.” he shoves the DVDs aside, reaching for the basket of treats as he tries to crawl away.

“Wait,” Chanyeol rolls his eyes when it becomes evident Jongin is grave serious, “let’s watch something we’ve already seen, it won’t be as scary. The Descent?”

“Chanyeol,” Jongin says slowly, looking something akin to wonderstruck if it weren’t for the sharp rise of his brow and wide eyes like he pities Chanyeol, “that’s one of the worst.”

“Come on. I’ll even hold your hand. You can hug Ralphie too. It’s Halloween, Jongin. It has to be authentically scary!”

Jongin is silent, teeth worrying the inside of his cheek. Then he looks up, sudden diffidence to his demeanour, “You’ll hold my hand?”

Chanyeol can only nod, his being momentarily usurped by unabridged affection, blooming vigorously at his crux.

“And...you can’t talk about this afterwards!” he adds in a fierce whisper. Chanyeol laughs but nods again, reaching a hand out to him.

 

With the fairy lights off, the only illumination comes from the screen. It casts dark, flickering shadows on the white canvas of their makeshift tent, the silence beyond it stark.

True to his promise, Jongin’s hand rests on Chanyeol's lap, beneath the blanket. He squeezes every time Jongin’s nails dig into his skin, the littlest things like prophetic solemn aura making Jongin shift closer. Ralphie sits next to Jongin, head in his lap, and Chanyeol is consequently squished to the side, more so each time Jongin pushes closer. He has half a mind to put his arm around the spooked man and let him as close as he wants against his side but Jongin seems content for now.

Despite having seen the movie many times, Chanyeol finds himself engrossed. Until it reaches his favourite part, which terrifies Jongin the most, and he glances at him. Jongin is already looking up at him and Chanyeol wonders how he didn’t feel his gaze; it seems Jongin’s been pensive for some time.

There are shadows in his eyes, ones that seem an innate part of him, ones he had increasingly the weeks up to his departure that Chanyeol never gave much thought till Jongin was gone and he was thinking back for signs he might’ve missed. A sheet of fear, much like the eyes of the characters in the movie when they spot the monster. Like he is dreading a demon only he can see, a seer of sorrow yet to come and he is preparing to flee in the other direction.

Chanyeol has never unmasked the nature of Jongin’s demons.

“It’s so easy.” Chanyeol hears his fractured emotion above the ominous music, “Feels like before.”

This, Chanyeol knows what this means. He squeezes their twined fingers tighter, sharpness under his ribs. He has been so engrossed in their _now_ that it feels like they are right in the past. Life post Jongin occurred in a void, an alternate universe, and Chanyeol’s reality only resumed once Jongin returned, with everything unchanged.

How easy indeed, he thinks. How easy it is to fall back into old patterns, as simple as a revitalized river following a time-smoothed channel, filling all the hollows and caressing all the banks as before.  

Jongin had woven himself into the fabric of Chanyeol’s life, threaded so intricately and wholly, intrinsic to the point that Chanyeol forgot what had originally been him and what was Jongin. Then Jongin had ripped himself out. Not string by string, a gentle unravelling. A forceful plucking that left Chanyeol torn at the seams, gaps glaring through the fabric that had held him together, that had become _him_. Left to patch his holes and bind himself together. And still. Flecks of Jongin trapped themselves in the mending.

“Chanyeol—” Jongin starts but a shrieks splits the air between them and Jongin is ten feet out of his skin before he is suddenly pressed right into Chanyeol’s side, head under his arm.

Ralphie barks, rising up to cover Jongin’s shaking body and Chanyeol would holler in laughter if Jongin was not genuinely terrified.

“Just a movie, baby.” he whispers into Jongin’s hair, twisting around to embrace him fully. His frantic breathing warms Chanyeol’s chest, right over his heart. Ralphie covers Jongin’s back and between the two, his shaking ceases, his breathing levels.

“What’s wrong, Jongin?” Chanyeol asks when he begins to retract himself from Chanyeol’s arms. Jongin has been terrified before, he has screamed and yelled and struck out all in fear but Chanyeol has never seen him like this, trembling like his bones are rattling inside his skeleton and breathing a visible labour.

“I—” he is cut off again as the bell rings, startling all three of them. They stare at each other, wide eyed and unmoving, the creeping eeriness straight from a horror flick. Then it goes off again, a succession of impatient dings.

“Oh, it’s the kids!” Chanyeol scrambles up, relieved and feeling foolish.

“What?”

“Trick-or-treating kids. They’re here for their sweets. Come on.”

A confused Jongin and Ralphie pad behind him while the bell continues to ring. Chanyeol chuckles in anticipation. The plan had formulated over a while, Jongin agreeing to come over on Halloween night spurring it.

“Are you up for some spooking?” he grins at Jongin and hands him an ebony bedsheet. “Okay, so I’m going to go out first, through the front door. Meanwhile you are going to go around through the garden passage and wait for my signal. After my initial scare — which won’t work, by the way, they’re used to it, — you’re going to appear and scream ‘boo!’. Do you follow?” he exhales, trying to reign in his excitement. Jongin looks more bemused than comprehending but he nods slowly.

“But why?”

“To give them a scare.” Chanyeol says simply, retrieving another basket of treats from the pantry, this one purely meant for distribution. “Quick, but make sure they don’t hear you coming!” he prompts a still unsure looking Jongin through the backdoor, holding a finger to his lips for Ralphie. The husky cocks his head but there’s a conspiratorial glint in his eyes and Chanyeol briefly pats his head.

He shrugs a bedsheet over himself, trying to balance the basket too and goes to open the door. His booming yell is met with unamused stares, Dylan, one of his more notorious kids, faking a yawn.

Shifting he glimpses from his peripheral tells him Jongin is ready and awaiting his signal.

“Isn’t it past your bedtime, old man? Can we just have our sweets?” Dylan’s bored nasally voice calls out and Chanyeol bears it with a grin. He is suffering terribly on their scoreboard, 1-4, but this is _his_ year! He _will_ get them, with Jongin’s help.

“What are you supposed to be anyway?” he scans their costumes as he empties portions of the basket into their half full bags. There’s Lisa with her traditional Wonder Woman costume that she has worn for the past four years, Louise with a black amorphous fabric that might be a witch’s robe, Chanyeol isn’t sure with all the bright badges on the shoulders, and he’s not sure either what Kyle and Jamie are sporting.

“That is—”

“Boo!”

And promptly, a chorus of screams erupts. The frightened children look about wildly, trying to find the source. Their screams become cacophonous once they spot Jongin and none of them holds back, racing straight down the drive and out of sight.

Chanyeol can’t stay upright with his guffaws, the empty basket slipping out of his hands. Jongin is giggling against the porch frame, bed sheet abandoned on the ground.

“Oh my god, Jongin,” Chanyeol wheezes, banging a fist against the door, “Did you see Dylan’s face? Oh my god that was so good.”

“You’re an asshole, Chanyeol.” Jongin says through a laugh, his face illuminated.

“They deserve it.” he shrugs, grin fast. “Come on.”

Ralphie yaps about happily as they trudge back into the kitchen. He puts the basket away and takes out a Guinness pack from the fridge, handing Jongin a can.

“Believe me, they did. You’re going to wake up in the morning and find the whole front yard TPed. Maybe the garden too, if they’re feeling vindictive. I think it’s safe to say they are tonight.”

Though Chanyeol’s house is a lonesome brick Victorian that appears worse for wear from the exterior, situated obscurely behind a park of thick deciduous copses that shroud the path to it, the kids make the trek each year. It is no secret that Chanyeol gives the best and dearest treats. However, Dylan and his bandits are the only ones daring enough to not only come for treats but bless Chanyeol’s house in their dastardly mischievous traditions.  

“They do that often?” Jongin sits himself on a counter, cracking his drink open.

“Every year. I’m not too bad, am I?”

“Nope. I take back saying you’re asshole.” he points his can at Chanyeol, followed by a deep chug.

“Kind of you.” he takes his own chug, aware of Jongin’s eyes on him. “Are you ready for another movie? I haven’t seen this one but I think I’m going to love it.” Jongin is groaning before he even finishes his sentence.

“Why can’t we watch something that won’t steal my sleep? No? Can I get drunk first?” he takes another deep chug to cement his point.

“No.” Chanyeol pries the can from Jongin’s fingers, “If you get drunk, I won’t be able to watch the movie. You’ll flirt — horribly — and try to get me to kiss you.” he sets the can far from Jongin’s reach, cocking his head to get Jongin to follow him to their fort but Jongin tugs him back.

“What?”

“I’m not drunk yet.” he says, much quieter, “I’m not drunk now. And I want you to kiss me.”

Chanyeol’s pulse halts, the world dims until Jongin is the only discernible thing. He sets his can aside too, standing closer to the counter between Jongin’s legs. Death white knuckles gripping the wood, chest expanding, Chanyeol looks at a sparkle eyed Jongin. Slowly, the infinite second between dawn and daylight, Jongin leans in.

Then they’re both rushing forward, plunging into each other except the collision is breakingly gentle. Hands shaping each other’s faces, eyelashes fluttering against the swell of each other’s cheeks, warm velvet lips pressing together.

Jongin quietly sighs his name against his lips and Chanyeol pulls him closer by the waist, tender, tender, fatally tender.

The warmth notches up between them, higher and higher to a sizzle, Jongin pulling Chanyeol forward, flush as he can against him, Chanyeol pulling him back, holding him to his heart.

Legs wrap neatly around him, palm cradling his nape and holding him to urgent lips — the craving inside Chanyeol explodes, he wants, in all the ways he wanted and needed in the past years.

“Jongin, Jongin—” he turns sharply, Jongin’s lips squishing against his cheek. Neither of them moves. Chanyeol’s fingers hurt on the counter, a war waging inside him, almost conquering.

_Touch him, touch him, you need it, he needs it._

Jongin’s breath tickles him, grasp on his neck firm still, his heart audible — or that could just be Chanyeol’s.

“It’s just…” Jongin murmurs against his cheek when what feels like minutes have passed and neither of them can move, “I was so happy Chanyeol. So, so happy with you.” his sigh as doleful as heartbreak.

Incredulity makes Jongin’s words slippery, difficult to grasp. Chanyeol thinks he misheard. “Are you saying that you left because you were _happy?"_  he detaches himself from Jongin, his head spinning as he backs away.

“No — yes— no. I— I was happy Chanyeol.” he doesn’t look at Chanyeol, he doesn’t look up, “More than I had ever been. It was the most right my life could’ve been, the closest to perfect. And...it scared me.”

 _"Why?"_ his incredulity cuts between them, he sees Jongin’s flinch, the sink of his chest. He walks to him again, “Why?” he repeats, softer, tilting Jongin’s chin up so their eyes meet.

“Because that’s my life Chanyeol. The minute I acknowledge my happiness, it’s taken away. And you were getting restless, there was something bothering you and I was so scared.

“I didn’t want us to end because of things turning bad. I just...wanted to remember us happy. The happiest times.” he echoes in a contrite whisper.

“Jongin...Jongin.” words are elusive, the trace of a headache at his temples. “You should have talked to me. You...you should have talked to me.” he can’t begin to grasp the surreality of this, it’s soaring way above his head but he tries to understand.

“It wasn’t about you, Jongin. It was work.” It’s starting to click. He had thought so long, so hard about what he might have done, what drove Jongin away but he never considered it was this. He thought his struggle at work was discreet, he didn’t think the frustration transcribed to other parts of his life, much less his relationship.

The novelty of working in what he thought was his dream field long faded, his passion for it withered and he was reconsidering his life, the career aspect of it. Not Jongin. Never Jongin.  “I— I thought you were it for me, Jongin.” the words are out before he can stop them and the silence that follows is denser than a rainy sky.

“You mean that?” Jongin looks thunderstruck, rigid yet ready to fall apart at Chanyeol’s words.

“‘Course I do.” his sigh comes from a tunnel through his soul. He returns to the space between Jongin’s thighs, “This is really stupid, you know?”

“Yeah.”

“It hurt me, so much.”

“I know. I’m sorry, Chanyeol.”

“You should make it up to me.” he feels exhausted, the conclusion of a suspenseful three year finale and he is drained. The lonesome past years or what Jongin did might not be easily forgotton but Chanyeol is so worn out, he just wants it behind them.

“I will, I promise.”

“You can start by apologizing to my lips, with yours.”

Jongin’s laugh is lost against him.

 

~~~

 

A solitary tendril of smoke billows from the candle on the sill. Frost fogs the French panes, crimson colours the low horizon, the palest of cloudless teal above it. Ghoulish branches point their barren bark to the sky, at each other, a tangle of needle limbs. November has already seen to the downfall of all vibrance, including the subdued colours of Autumn leaves.

The frail curtain sways, the icy breeze kissing over Chanyeol’s exposed back. They must have forgotten to close it last night.

He is about to try to reclaim sleep until he realizes he doesn’t feel Jongin on or next to him. Scrambling up so fast that the world spins, his eyes dart about room.

There. Almost at the edge of the bed. Jongin is wrapped in one of his large shirts, sitting up with his knees curled to his chest and his head resting on the crook of his elbow. His eyes are closed but the weak morning light illuminates the wetness on his on his lashes.

Chanyeol gulps up air, trying to steady the stallion beat of his heart. _He’s here. He’s here._

“I’m not leaving, Chanyeol. Ever again. Unless you want me to.” Jongin’s eyes are open now, surveying him with unguarded sadness that borders anguish. “You were having a nightmare. Screaming my name.”

“Oh.”

“The night before last too, the one before that.”

“Oh.” He doesn’t remember any of it, he thought they stopped since Jongin started sleeping with him again.

“I’m sorry.”

“Hey, why are you crying?” Chanyeol reaches for Jongin who fervently wraps his arms around him.

“You tried so hard. I’m sorry.” Jongin says muffled against his throat, his disheveled hair tickling Chanyeol’s chin. Chanyeol’s palm finds its way to the base of Jongin’s back, printing circles on the warm flesh.

“Hey, hey.” Chanyeol soothes, morning voice gravelly, “It’s silly. It really is. We should have just talked about it.” Jongin hiccups against him, his nails digging into the space between Chanyeol’s shoulder blades, “But. You tried too, didn’t you? It was all you could do then. That’s okay too. Nini baby, look at me.”

Red nose and tear stained face peeks up at Chanyeol, and before he can speak, Chanyeol leans down. The kiss is a caress of sunshine in the biting November cold, warm as a fireplace and sweetly Jongin.

Chanyeol lets Jongin push him back, pull the duvet over them, kissing till their lips are numb for reasons other than the cold. Perhaps Chanyeol understands Jongin’s fear.

This. He never wants to part with this again.

“I never told you this but. You know noonas and my mom aren’t my first family.” Chanyeol is in the middle of measuring Jongin’s shoulder in kisses when Jongin’s whisper dentures the warm stillness.

“Hm?”

“I…” the silence slugs time. Chanyeol turns Jongin over to face him, reaching for his hand. He caresses Jongin’s palm as he grasps for words, chest moving faster. Ten full exhales later, Jongin speaks again, “I’m adopted.”

Chanyeol nods, fingers twining with Jongin’s to squeeze. He hugs him closer but says nothing, sensing Jongin has more to say, feeling the weight of what Jongin is sharing.

“Before I found my family, I bounced around in the system a lot. Tossed between cities and schools, constant new people and places, you know? Nothing ever lasted.” Jongin pauses again, his voice shaky,  the most vulnerable Chanyeol has seen him but he meets Chanyeol’s gaze, steady. “Nothing ever lasted.” he repeats, searching Chanyeol’s eyes, nails mooning Chanyeol’s skin, body taut against his.

Chanyeol nods, captures Jongin’s lips, slowly, for a single kiss that lasts longer than seasons, before pulling away and smiling at Jongin. “This will last.”

The shadows return to Jongin’s eyes as he stares back and Chanyeol is about to repeat himself, louder and firmer so Jongin can understand how much he means it, but Jongin relaxes, gaze clear and whispers, “This will last.”

“We’ll make it.” Chanyeol leans over and kisses Jongin’s shoulder, hugging him even closer and listening to Jongin's soft breaths as he falls back into a doze.

Eventually, when Chanyeol has to get ready for work, they stumble out of bed, wrapped up in sheets, human linen burritos waddling down the stairs. They topple halfway down and ache with laughter for awhile before they crawl to the kitchen—where Ralphie and Jongin refuse to detach from Chanyeol’s back at the stove.

 

~~~

 

“I’m seeing Jongin again.” Chanyeol doesn’t daddle.

“I know.” Baekhyun doesn’t miss a beat, continuing on with stroking the fat tabby in his lap.

“Great, I’m glad you— you _what?"_

“I know.” Baekhyun looks up from the cat, lips curved.

“Do you want to explain how?” Chanyeol’s curiosity is impatient in the face of Baekhyun’s contrived, smug deliberation.

“Jongin told me.” he laughs when Chanyeol splutters, setting the tabby free. “I’m going to tell you something but you’re not allowed to get mad.”

Chanyeol has a feeling anger might be inevitable, or annoyance at the least.

“I’ve been talking to Jongin for a year now.” he pauses, like he knows the words need time to connect.

“Explain.” Chanyeol’s mind is completely blank.

“I met him while I was in Skerries on call. He was interviewing this old couple for a story and they had a puppy who had been ill for a while.”

“So then you’ve been canoodling behind my back?” Chanyeol doesn’t really feel the heat of his snarkiness, he is still rather numb.

“Chill.” Baekhyun rolls his eyes. “He followed me back to the clinic and we kept in touch after that. I was worried, Chanyeol. He wasn’t doing good.”

Any annoyance fades at that. Their time apart is a subject they still skirt but Chanyeol knows they need to talk about it. If only to prevent another premature end to their relationship.

Chanyeol doesn’t believe for a second that Jongin was fine. Not after seeing him stare at him when he thinks he’s not paying attention, relief so ripe on his face it stings Chanyeol’s eyes. Not after hearing him whisper sorry on his skin when he thinks that Chanyeol thinks he’s fast asleep. Not after the constant minuscule and monumental apologies he deluges silently on Chanyeol, in faint caresses and warm squeezing hugs, in kisses brief and ones too deep to time.

“He missed you. And I knew you missed him.” Baekhyun states simply. Chanyeol can’t refute it. “You were trying hard to pretend you’re fine but Chanyeol. I’m your best friend. Heck, everyone who knew about you guys could see it. While you were trying to move on, he wasn’t even trying. It was hard to watch you both like that.”

Chanyeol feels like he is hearing anew, seeing anew. Baekhyun’s pain had never been so evident to him. Even when he carried Chanyeol back home from the pub or came over to cuddle on days he felt too down to function, he’d never glimpsed Baekhyun’s sadness at seeing him deteriorate, ever bright. Baekhyun acted like Chanyeol would one day be fine again, that his heartbreak was a soon ending phase and Chanyeol needed someone to see it that way because he sure as hell didn’t.

“You told Kyungsoo. And you told Jongin about Morpheus.” Chanyeol knows he is right before Baekhyun even confirms.

“He was really proud of you, by the way.”

“I know.” He smiles down at the tabby, a sudden warmth in his chest at the memory of Jongin lining the living room sills with candles, _I never got to say congrats,_ then gliding into his arms to kiss his cheek.

“Is this a good time to tell you that I’m seeing Sehun?”

Chanyeol’s smile falls off his face.

“You are _what?”_

“It’s actually going to be our month anniversary.” Baekhyun smiles as if the intensity of it will make Chanyeol forget his surprise.

“Month anniv— what, Baekhyun what are all these secrets?” Chanyeol exclaims, wounded by his best friend’s discretion.

“Does this mean you’re not mad at me for dating your boyfriend’s best friend?”

“What? No, of course not. I— Sehun and Jongin— wait, doesn’t matter. Why didn’t you tell me?” He’s sure Baekhyun knows Sehun and Jongin haven’t spoken for a while either.

Jongin’s break away was clean and complete, pushing away everything in his then current life including his best friend. It only opened a chasm for loneliness to pour in and Chanyeol had been shocked because he had thought Sehun to be a studious unyielding friend, if not the best. Jongin had quickly reassured him that he hadn’t given Sehun a choice, much like Chanyeol.

“Jongin was planning to come back and I didn’t really want to bring back skeletons from the past in case it didn’t work out again with you two.”

Chanyeol nods, a little overcome and tempted to squeeze a hug Baekhyun in a hug until his bones are dust.

“Thanks Hyunnie.”

“Don’t cry on me. You have a boyfriend to snot over now.” Baekhyun shudders but he still rises to wrap his limbs around Chanyeol and let his best friend hug his waist.

 

~~~

  


At times, the three lost years gape like a void between them. In the things Jongin assumes he knows about Chanyeol but have changed, and vice versa. In the silent moments that follow Chanyeol’s panicked dreams that startle them awake in the wee hours of the night, as Jongin holds and murmurs solace to him. In the quiet, molten _I miss you_ s whispered joined and close as humanly possible.

Above all, it’s simple.

In the way _I miss you_ s come from a well of longing, ironed to each other’s lips savoury, satin. In the way Chanyeol always measures Jongin’s skin in kisses, cuddled on the sofa with only a blanket and each other’s warmth defending them from winter’s viciousness. In the way their wardrobe is _theirs,_ their stacks and racks of clothes mingling with no sides marking what’s whose. In the way that they reach for their shared mug at the same time and chuckle before their mirth ceases at the sweetness of chocolate against each other. In the way Mom invites Jongin over, fussing over him as always and calling him Son. In the way Ralphie and Toben bark happily when they make it onto Jongin’s blog, grinning behind Jongin’s—miraculously— resting kids.

In the way _this will last_ becomes their I love you.

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i hope chankai weren't too frustrating :') thank you for reading ♡
> 
> come talk to me on [twitter](https://twitter.com/miraclesnapril) or [curious cat](https://curiouscat.me/miraclesnapril)~


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